Sabbath School for a New Generation

A review of Samir Selmanovic's book

2009-07-31T18:08:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since I have posted on my blog. But I thought I would start things off again with a review of Samir Selmanovic's book, "It's Really All About God". I have also posted the review below on Amazon.com and the visual bookshelf app on Facebook.

A friend of mine divides the beliefs of Christians into two types: messy theology and clean theology. “It’s Really All About God” by Samir Selmanovic is a clear example of messy theology in all its glory. And for those of us who have a messy theology, who deal with uncertainty and doubt, who revel in the complex mystery that we call God, this book will be a breath of fresh air.

Samir’s book is part auto-biography and part theological treatise. It is firmly based on a life experience that is rich in its variety. Samir grew up in a family of Muslim heritage; he became an atheist, and then converted to Christianity during his year of military service. He uses different aspects of his life to illustrate each point. One of my favorite stories is told near the beginning. At one point in his pastoral career he became friends with a woman who was Wiccan. He invites her to pray at a religious conference that his church is hosting. It is a charming story of the “other” giving encouragement to a discouraged Christianity.

In his book, he talks about how Jews, Christians, and Muslims teach that we are created in God’s image. God is not confined to one belief system and we cannot control him (or even our own body at times.) In fact it is much too easy to domesticate God and create an idol out of our religion. Therefore we cannot exclude the “other,” those who are not from our religion. For one, God may have called them to share His truth for us. Yes, God can use even an atheist (or a Wiccan) to call us into the Kingdom of God and away from the idolatry of our religion. It has radical implications to how we share our beliefs. Instead of attempting to convert others we dialog with them.

Samir has strong words of warning for religion if it is not able to embrace the other. We are in danger of losing our rich cultural heritage that religion provides. Religion is in danger of dying. On the other hand he is able to see hope in that new life coming from death is a common Biblical metaphor.

Although I enjoyed reading the book, there were times when feelings of guilt would creep in. Any many ways this is a prophetic book that calls those who follow God to a higher standard. There have been so many times that I have been a failure when it comes to communicating and interacting with others and so many times that I have not acted in love to those created in the image of God. And there have been times when for me, it wasn’t really about God.

This story makes me sick

2007-11-28T15:36:00.000-08:00

A symbol of freedom from sin is manufactured in a Chinese sweatshop. Here is an alternate veiwpoint from the Catholic News Service. So what should happen next? Kernaghan of the National Labor Counsel (author of the report) says:

"Following a thorough investigation, St. Patrick's and Trinity should work together with the Association for Christian Retail to clean up the Junxingye factory in China and implement concrete steps to guarantee that the legal rights of the young workers will finally be respected," he said.

"Pulling production from the factory would only further punish these young women, who have suffered enough already," he added.

Best quiz yet

2007-04-30T17:09:00.000-07:00

From Pastor Greg's blog comes the best quiz yet. I am sure by now you know which super hero you are, which car you are most like, and your kindrid Harry Potter spirit. Now you can find out which church father you are most like.

You’re St. Justin Martyr!

You have a positive and hopeful attitude toward the world. You think that nature, history, and even the pagan philosophers were often guided by God in preparation for the Advent of the Christ. You find “seeds of the Word” in unexpected places. You’re patient and willing to explain the faith to unbelievers.

Find out which Church Father you are at The Way of the Fathers!

Archeoporn

2007-03-05T07:28:00.000-08:00

Your word of the day is Archeoporn. This word sums up the documentary "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" where a couple of filmmakers claimed that they had found Jesus's grave with Jesus's bones. It was applied to this documentary by Dr. Reed, during an experts panel after the show. Dr. Reed is a co-author of In Search of Paul, which is an excellent book that I have discussed earlier. This of course fits with Simcha Jacobovici's method. He takes a bunch of highly unlikely interpretations and strings them together in a format that titillates more than informs.

My biggest complaint concerned their "statistical" analysis. It was very ad-hoc with very little rigor and the assumptions weren't explained well and they may or may not have been valid. Additionally if you assume for the sake of roundness that there were only 60,000 families, you would expect to see this cluster of names in 100 tombs. So overall it was a very weak argument.

Additionally they linked their ossuaries to the James ossuary, an alleged forgery. The ossuary is real, but the inscription is suposedly a modern addition. It turns out that one of the 10 ossuaries that were found in the Talpiot Tombs went missing. The film claims that the James ossuary is the missing ossuary. Since the inscription is a forgery, it would cast into doubt all of the inscriptions if there is in fact a link between the ossuaries.

Overall the film, while it was about two hours in length, could have been presented in 15 minutes. In fact there wasn't much new information that wasn't contained in their original media circuit on the Today show and others.

Jesus' tomb???

2007-02-27T09:39:00.000-08:00

A couple of film makers have claimed to have "discovered" Jesus' tomb. James Cameron, of course, is famous for that one movie that made about $2 billion. The director is Simcha Jacobovici who recently made the documentary, Exodus Decoded. I saw this on the Today show yesterday as well as on Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

I am planning on watching it, but I don't expect a very high quality product. The problem is Simcha Jacobovici has a reputation for making sensational "discoveries." These usually involve looking at the evidence (you might call it twisting the evidence) in a very different way than what is accepted by scientists. He will leave out evidence that contradicts his "hypothesis" and build a very convincing story based on a part of the data. The atrocities are documented in this review of Exodus Decoded, which also includes a dialogue with Simcha Jacobovici, so read the whole thing. However I think this quote sums it up nicely.

By the end of the film I grew weary of the piling-on of amazing discoveries. Each one is historically dubious and requires a willing suspension of disbelief.

I expect this upcoming film will have many of the same problems.

Update: I forgot to mention one small detail. The tomb they claimed to have discovered wasn't empty. In the tomb there was a box labled "Jesus son of Joseph" and box labeled "Judah son of Jesus" along with a box attributed to Mary Magdalene.

Inconvenient truth

2007-02-27T06:57:00.000-08:00

I watched An Inconvenient Truth this weekend. Al Gore has put together a stunning and compelling picture of the danger our planet faces. The Oscar was well deserved. At the end of his movie, they list a website that gives suggestions on how to reduce our carbon footprint. Many of these ideas make sense from an economic perspective and not just environmental. For example, riding my bike to work saves me $1 - $2 a day depending on the price of gas. Additionally, I am hoping it will save on my healthcare costs down the road. Some of these ideas have already been implemented in my household and some still need to be done.

Evolution Vs. Creationism

2007-02-15T14:17:00.000-08:00

Here is an interesting compilation of videos featuring scientists and their view about Evolution and Science and Creationism.

The video below is the section on peer review and how the process works.

Preparation Day

2006-12-27T16:40:00.000-08:00

Another interesting factoid. Looking over the number of site visits to this site by day of the week, by far, the biggest day is Friday. It has been the largest day of the week for the last month or two. I don't know if this is true for other Adventist blogs as well.

Left Behind Controversy according to CNN

2006-12-20T17:49:00.000-08:00

CNN has an article about the violent video game. The amount of violence and hate promoted by some segments of Christianity is amazing.

How do readers stumble onto my site?

2006-12-18T17:08:00.000-08:00

I don't know about the rest of you bloggers, but I like to check the "By Referrals" tab in sitemeter to determine how people find my blog. I've noticed that most people stumble onto here looking for information about the 3ABN scandal. I think I have only written one post onto that. The most interesting path to my blog? Somebody asked google, "How could they reject my ICASSP paper?" That is a question that I have asked myself multiple times. Actually I probably have more posts about rejected ICASSP papers than 3ABN. I wonder why I don't get more hits from those posts?

Biblical Archeology

2006-12-18T16:35:00.000-08:00

I've read several books that said the archeological record doesn't support the Israelite invasion of Canaan as portrayed in Joshua. Most recently, I just finished reading The Bible Unearthed. It is a very engaging work with some interesting ideas. It boggles my mind that this insignificant nation produced a book that is now the world's most popular and influential. The authors claim not only was there no Exodus (or at least it didn't happen like it is portrayed in the Torah), but David was only a chieftain of a fairly small tribe and the kingdom of Judah really didn't form until shortly before the time of Josiah.

They concentrate most of their book on describing the Deuteronomist history, so while Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings are covered in depth, they don't say much about the rest of the Old Testament. Of course these are the primary historical books. (Chronicles is basically a re-hash of Kings, written from a post-exilic perspective.)

According to some, the thesis of this book is not widely accepted among archaeologists. Since I am not an archeologist and I don't know anybody who is, I am having a hard time verifying that claim. Is this a claim put out by those who believe in inerrancy only or is their enough evidence that it is supported by a wider group? Does anybody have any good books on the subject that they can recommend?

Jaroslav Pelikan

2006-12-13T18:26:00.000-08:00

For information about the history of the church, I can't think of a better author. My first experience with his books was when I purchased Jesus Through the Centuries from a used bookstore. This was probably my earliest step towards post-modernism. It was after reading this book, that I began to realize that my interpretation of the life of Jesus was not the same as somebody who lived 300, 500, or 1500 years ago. Each generation has interpreted the incarnation in a way that spoke best for that generation.

My next encounter with Dr. Pelikan occurred during my time as a student missionary in Russia. As a side job, I agreed to help Michael Kulikov (Junior not Senior) put together the end notes a Russian translation of volume four of The Christian Tradition: a History of the Development of Doctrine.

Finally this summer, I purchased his book Whose Bible is It? It was a good book. I didn't enjoy it as much as some of his other works, but I highly recommend it. In it, you will learn how the Bible came to be the document we know today. You will learn the importance of the Bible to the printing press and the importance of the printing press to the Bible. I think the highlight of the book was his observation that during the time when critics were dissecting the human elements of the text and minimizing its significance (its only a myth), the Bible was inspiring more of humanity than ever before with its wisdom.

Unfortunately, Dr. Pelikan passed away this past May. To learn more about him, you can check out what Wikipedia has to say.

Unbelievable

2006-12-12T15:04:00.000-08:00

I now know why many call it the World Nut Daily. World net daily is reporting that soy products cause homosexuality. This has been adequately ripped to shreds by Pharyngula. It's amazing the nonsense people believe. The article reminded me of some key scenes involving a nut ball air base commander in a certain Stanley Kubrik movie, "Dr. Strangelove."

WWU

2006-10-04T09:10:00.000-07:00

So WWC has now become WWU. I'm not sure what the point of the whole exercise was. I find a university to be a much larger, colder, less personal place than a college. In my mind it has a more negative connotation.

Problems with Prophecy

2006-10-01T20:47:00.000-07:00

Carlos Espinosa brings up a good point about Adventist interpretations of prophecy. His thesis concerns the statue in Daniel 2. Our traditional interpretation is that the head is Babylon (specifically called out in Daniel), with the other portions of the statue representing Persia, Greece, and Rome. Our church has maintained that there will be no significant empires after Rome. As Carlos points out, there have been several empires. He names Byzantine, the Arab empire, and Turk Ottoman empire.

Historical evidence does not support the assertion of most traditional Adventist writers that no other world empire would exist after Rome until the second coming. This brief survey makes clear that claims to the contrary are wrong. Any unbiased reader of history can follow the sequence of empires in biblical lands and other parts of the world until the twenty-first century without finding any hint that Rome was the last empire.

The fact of the matter is that our notions of prophecy are very Western centric. You will notice that most of our interpretations center on Europe and the United States. The world is quite a bit bigger than that. Don't you find it funny that we say almost nothing about China and India. Each of those countries have a population around a billion people. Each one of these countries has a population that is larger than the US and Europe combined. Additionally our interpretations only consider Catholics and Protestants and ignore the Orthodox church, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Our ideas about prophecy seem to have been inherited from the wars between Catholics and Protestants, when Protestants were using the Bible to demonize their opponents. They have not been updated to our time when we have greater knowledge and contact with other cultures.

If we want to reach the entire world with the message of Christ’s second coming, we cannot allow factual errors to hinder our credibility. If we retain those errors, we run the risk of being perceived as a sect, a small group that accepts some doctrines by faith (based on the magisterial authority of their religious leaders) despite their incompatibility with the factual evidence.

Additionally if we want to reach the entire world, our interpretation of prophecy must be inclusive to the whole world.

Another voice against litmus tests

2006-09-08T15:49:00.000-07:00

Bob Rigsby writes on Spectrum Magazine's website:

Of all the comments made in the midst of a doctrinal disagreement, (the 1844/sanctuary doctrine, this quarter’s Sabbath School topic, perhaps the biggest one of all) ones like this puzzle me most:"If you don’t believe the doctrine as traditionally held, it might be best—more honest even—just to leave the church…go someplace which is more closely aligned with ’your’ beliefs." (For examples, see the Adventist Review, July 26, 2001, 28; Nov. 28, 2002, 13; July 24, 2003, 29; and April 28, 2005, 17.)

Amen. I also like his concluding paragraph, but I highly recommend the whole article.

The tension thus generated also illustrates well for me why I take seriously the fact that I am an Adventist. Accepting that label obligates me to the process of wrestling with truth in ways that both remain loyal to the work and struggles of our spiritual forefathers, while at the same time remaining true to the vision of truth as perceived in my own conscience. Loyalty to the people and the process of early Adventism, however, need not obligate me to their every conclusion—as they themselves often demonstrated. Thus, the task of being an Adventist is, in large measure, to participate respectfully in an ongoing quest for ever broader and deeper understandings of truth, but undertaken with a humility that recognizes our fallibility and yet honors our God.

Let's not forget the past, but let us move forward. Most Adventists of the more liberal persuasion like the moving forward, but we have a tendency to want to forget the past. The Great Disappointment, investigative judgement, and Ellen White are a large part of our history and we shouldn't sweep it under the rug. I would perfer instead to reinterpret in a way that makes sense to us today. I think Sherman Cox expresses some of these ideas very well on his site Adventist Pulpit. For example you should read what he has to say about the Sanctuary Message. But as we move forward, let us also remember that we will make frequent mistakes along the way. And that's okay.

The end never justifies the means

2006-09-08T10:48:00.000-07:00

Those who know me, know that I am a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings. One of the major themes that runs through the whole series is that the ends never justifies the means. This was lost in the movie, but the cause of the downfall of Saruman and Denethor was their use of the tools of evil to bring about good. It was also a constant temptation for Gandalf and Aragorn.

I strongly believe in this as well, which is why I am very strongly against torture under any circumstances. No matter how bad that person may be. It is also why I am concerned when religion becomes involved to closely with politics, especially political parties. A point that was made quite well in this article onTalk2Action.org.

As a grinning Ralph Reed has stated many times publicly, it's not important what people think about you, only that you operate quietly in the background and achieve your goals by any means necessary. What American Christian voters should be asking themselves is, "Are our values truly being heard, or are today's Republican Right simply pretending they are hearing us in order get our votes, remain in power, and instead continue their pro-corporate and pro-militaristic agenda?"

There are many more examples of people who instead of working for Christ are now working for the Republican party. It is also a cautionary tale as those of us who are progressive and Christian are banding together and working to effect change in America.

Good Commentary by Alden Thompson

2006-08-31T10:04:00.000-07:00

You should check out what Alden Thompson wrote on Spectrum Magazine's Sabbath School Commentary. He discusses the identity of the little horn. While I tend to be agree with those who say that the little horn represents Antiochus Epiphines, he has some good points. For example one of the reasons why it can be hard to identify which symbol represents which bad guy, is that they truely do all look the same. Here is a key quote where he extends the metaphor Opus style:

But that’s also why the story turns scary here, for we can be so eager to pin the right label on horns and beasts that we forget to look in the mirror and recognize ourselves as potentially close relatives of the beast.

Bicycling

2006-08-31T09:10:00.000-07:00

Just after I started my new job, I purchased a bicycle with the intention of using it to commute to work. My main goal was to get excercise in a convenient manner. Of course, I haven't had to purchase as much gas, so there are other benefits to this as well.

It is interesting what I have learned while riding my bicycle. I knew that people are willing to take risks when in a hurry, cutting people off, speeding, and swerving in and out of lanes. The dynamics are different when you are on a bicycle. I no longer have a ton of metal and glass between me and that speeding swerving car. People are taking risks with my life so that they can get to work 1 minute faster. In truth there is only one part of my route that is a problem and I don't think that there is an alternate that is better. Fortunately it only lasts for about a block.

But here is a friendly reminder from a bicycle commuter. If you are passing somebody on a bicycle, be considerate and give them lots of room. If you don't have room to pass them, wait until you do. And for those of you interested in bicycle commuting it is an easy thing to start and they are plenty of good resources about it on the internet.

Dark Matter

2006-08-25T11:19:00.000-07:00

In an earlier post, I discussed the work of Mordehai Milgrom. Well it turns out he may have a higher hurdle to clear in order for his work to be accepted. There have been some new observations that seem to confirm the existence of dark matter. A good summary of the experiment is at Cosmic Variance. I encourage all who are interested in Physics to check it out. As much as I dislike dark matter (it seems like a kludge to me) it seems to be supported by the best facts we have so far.

3ABN and train wrecks

2006-08-23T09:56:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure what attracts humanity to scandal. A coworker had a train wreck analogy which he applied to Paris Hilton. You know what is going to happen, nothing can be done to avoid it, and there will be a big crunch at the end. I'm sure there is a similar dynamic going on in our Adventist sub-culture when it comes to some of the recent events of 3ABN. Adventist Today pointed out that they receive a lot of traffic because people are looking for information about the divorce and re-marriage of Danny Shelton. They have published a series of letters, which confirmed some of the rumors I have heard from both points of view. (Confirmed meaning that the rumor is based on the actual point of view of the affected parties.)

Now I don't have the time or interest to figure out what really happened, but I thought the letters provided a good example of some of the pitfalls that a ministry can face if it is too tightly controlled by a dominant personanility. In the event of mistakes there is usually not a good procedure to address and resolve it. According to the Doctor's letter the investigation into the matter was more white-wash than substance. Part of the allegations touch on the tight control Danny Shelton has on his ministry. This issue was touched on by Ron Corson on his blog, who found Danny's response less than satisfactory.

Boycott of Tyndale?

2006-08-22T12:52:00.000-07:00

This is a story that I have been following somewhat. Tyndale has licensed a video game version of the Left Behind series, which has caused quite a bit of controversy. For those who haven't heard of it, one of the aspects of game play is that players go around New York converting heathens or killing them if they refuse to convert. (Or if you want to you can just kill them, but you may have to pray to improve your score in the game.) According to Talk2action.org, a boycott of Tyndale is being initiated because of their involvement in producing this game. In the story they have links to previous articles related to this game. As Monte Sahlin said in a recent post about James Standish, "Nowhere have Christian standards fallen so far as in regards to war and peace."

Church Growth

2006-08-03T16:35:00.000-07:00

Monte Sahlin has a post about the correlation between a congregation's willingness to change and church growth. He talks about two specific examples, use of internet technology and also electric guitars in worship.

The last few weeks my wife have been attending the local Spanish church, which is a perfect example of willingness to change. It is a very large church with a lot happening. They had a praise and worship style service, which my wife and I had never seen in a Spanish church before. Most Spanish churches are much more conservative than their English counter parts. The first thing we noticed was that there are a ton of children in the church. However more surprising was the number of people in the 18 to 40 age bracket. In comparison, my in-law's church has a very bi-modal distribution with quite a few children and lots of old people but not much in between.

The local church has also realized that the younger generation may not speak Spanish well, if at all. These same young people aren't usually as comfortable in the English churches. (Not as true in California, where churches tend to be ethnically mixed.) So the church has translation services as well, which is one of the reasons that we tried the church out, since I don't really speak any Spanish at all. It seems like they have some very active and innovative out-reach activities. I will keep you posted as I learn more about them.

Atoday on the IJ

2006-07-25T13:35:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, Atoday is doing a special commentary on this quarter's sabbath school lesson. The series is well done with several different viewpoints represented. However one of the comments to the editor really irked me.

So, if those who don't believe that 1844 is even supported in Scripture, they need to be honest and get out of Adventism. There is NO middle ground on this.

I've heard this from many different people on several different issues. Cliff Goldstein made a similar comment concerning Creationism/Evolution. It's reproduced here, but I believe the original article was in the Adventist Review.

Unfortunately it is not that simple. If I could only join a church if I agreed with all of its doctrines, the only church availiable to me would be the First Church of PerpetualStudent, which is definitely not the best option from the spiritual growth and nuturing perspective. There needs to exist room in any healthy church for discussion and possible change and there definitely needs to be room for a healthy disagreement.

Peer Review Revisited

2006-07-21T10:46:00.000-07:00

Earlier, I discussed some of the difficulties of peer review and how much I dislike it when people try to invoke a conspiracy to explain why their paper wasn't accepted. This particularly happens among Creationists and ID proponents. This last week, I read an article in Discover that talked about Mordahai Milgrom, who has proposed a rather controversial reformulation of gravity. His proposal would totally alter our concept of gravity and cosmology. Of course he has had trouble publishing his ideas, but through effort and research and several tries, he was able to finally get all of his original papers published in The Astrophysical Journal. At this point, it is too soon to tell if his ideas will gain wide acceptance.

I would have more respect for the Discovery Institute, if they followed this path of doing research and attempting to publish it. However they have chosen to try to have their ideas included by launching a PR offensive. This is not how science is done (if you consider ID science.)